"My mother died of cancer at 53. In those last painful months, she was more worried about paying her medical bills than getting well. I hear stories like hers everyday.
For 20 years Washington has talked about health care reform and reformed nothing. I've got a plan to cut costs and cover everyone. But unless we stop the bickering and the lobbyists we will be in the same place twenty years from now."
-The typical American family will save up to $2,500 per year on medical costs. -Offering a new public health plan that will give individuals the choice to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal employees. The new public plan will be open to individuals without access to group coverage through their workplace or current public programs. -Establishing a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase an insurance plan for themselves. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. -Requiring all employers to make a meaningful contribution towards health coverage for their employees. -Mandating all children have health care coverage and expanding the number of options for young adults up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parent's plans. -Expanding eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs and ensure that these programs continue to serve their critical safety net function.
-The typical American family will save up to $2,500 per year on medical costs.
-Offering a new public health plan that will give individuals the choice to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal employees. The new public plan will be open to individuals without access to group coverage through their workplace or current public programs.
-Establishing a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase an insurance plan for themselves. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible.
-Requiring all employers to make a meaningful contribution towards health coverage for their employees.
-Mandating all children have health care coverage and expanding the number of options for young adults up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parent's plans.
-Expanding eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs and ensure that these programs continue to serve their critical safety net function.
ONLINE to Register to Vote Now:
The state's online system requires two steps, one online and one via old-fashioned snail mail. The first step involves the applicant completing an online form. That sends counties an electronic record of each registration, but it doesn't register the would-be voter. Doing that requires the applicant to print, sign and mail a matching copy by the March 24 deadline. If you don't receive your voter I.D. card in two weeks, call your county's voters registration office.
Only Democrats can vote in the state's Democratic primary. The campaigns have until March 24 to sign up new party members from the 984,000 registered voters who are not members of either major party, or from potential defectors among the 3.2 million Republicans or Pennsylvanians who are not registered to vote.
This site was set up to help Obama supporters who have or need campaign gear find each other. Don't throw your materials away, reuse them for future primaries! Go to the forum section and you will see many posts. And remember, all of the materials from TX, OH, RI and VT, WY, MS can be used in PA, IN, NC and others- http://www.obamacycle.com/
Click on "forums" and you can post "have it" or "need it" messages there.
"You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican"
Here is the Youtube video link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBXD2zizIY PLEASE forward this video link to EVERY voter you know in PA, IN, and NC. It needs no further comment; Keith says it all.
The full transcript--
Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the presidential campaign of the Junior Senator from New York.
By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton — and the Senator’s mother, and the Senator’s brother — were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.
Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama’s nomination, nor suggesting it is inevitable.Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything.
Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro… your own advisors are slowly killing your chances to become President.Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation.But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.As Shakespeare wrote, Senator — that way… madness lies. You have missed a critical opportunity to do what was right.
No matter what Ms. Ferraro now claims, no one took her comments out of context. She had made them on at least three separate occasions, then twice more on television this morning.Just hours ago, on NBC Nightly News, she denied she had made the remarks in an interview — only at a paid political speech.In fact, the first time she spoke them, was ten days before the California newspaper published them… not in a speech, but in a radio interview.On February 26th, quoting…“If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this, as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he’s in? Absolutely not.”The context was inescapable.
Two minutes earlier, as a member of Senator Clinton’s Finance Committee, one of her “Hill-Raisers,” she had bemoaned the change in allegiance by super-delegate John Lewis from Clinton to Obama, and the endorsement of Obama by Senator Dodd. “I look at these guys doing it,” she had said, “and I have to tell you, it’s the guys sticking together.” A minute after the “color” remarks, she was describing herself as having been chosen for the 1984 Democratic ticket, purely as a woman politician, purely to make history.She was, in turn, making a blind accusation of sexism — and dismissing Senator Obama’s candidacy as nothing more than an Equal Opportunity stunt.
The next day she repeated her comments to a reporter from the newspaper in Torrance, California.“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
And when this despicable statement — ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context — when it floats outward from the Clinton campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do?Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline… on Jackie Robinson Day… about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barack Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan?Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama’s……while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President? Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House? Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks? Or Richard Nixon… fourteen… and Calvin Coolidge 25?Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power — gone by sunrise after she used the word “monster” — and have Senator Clinton say, “this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for,” while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign?
No.
Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.And she should then call, “regrettable”, words that should make any Democrat retch.And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to ’stick to the issues,’ and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama’s fault.
And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton’s campaign back into the vocabulary… of David Duke.“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”
'How’s that?'
Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb?Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly twenty years ago?Quote:“President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”
So… apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old?Apart from rendering ridiculous, Senator Clinton’s shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice President?Apart from this evening’s resignation letter?“I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you.”
Apart from all that?
Well. It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap… ignorant… vile… racism that underlies every syllable…And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance.Senator Clinton:This is not a campaign strategy.This is a suicide pact.This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the “commander-in-chief threshold”… But — he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.But you’d only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.
Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough, now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign’s initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her — now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now “speak for herself” about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota…
If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.Do you not see, Senator?
To Senator Clinton’s supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness.
And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns — a disturbing, but only borderline remark, after what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A-M” ad… a disturbing — but only borderline interpretation…And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama’s religion — a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness…After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern… false, or true.After those precedents, there are those who see an intent… false, or true.After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe — falsely or truly — as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced… and to not distance the campaign from it.To not distance you from it, Senator!To not distance you… from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!Which you should both fight with all you have!Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!
This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.You must remedy this.
And you must… reject… and denounce… Geraldine Ferraro.
Good night, and good luck.
"Hillary's Experience: Just Words"
When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she has passed “the Commander- in-Chief test” is simply not supported by her record.
There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. When asked to describe her experience, Senator Clinton has cited a handful of international incidents where she says she played a central role. But any fair-minded and objective judge of these claims – i.e., by someone not affiliated with the Clinton campaign – would conclude that Senator Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated. Northern Ireland: Senator Clinton has said, “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.” It is a gross overstatement of the facts for her to claim even partial credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland. She did travel to Northern Ireland, it is true. First Ladies often travel to places that are a focus of U.S. foreign policy. But at no time did she play any role in the critical negotiations that ultimately produced the peace. As the Associated Press recently reported, “[S]he was not directly involved in negotiating the Good Friday peace accord.” With regard to her main claim that she helped bring women together, she did participate in a meeting with women, but, according to those who know best, she did not play a pivotal role. The person in charge of the negotiations, former Senator George Mitchell, said that “[The First Lady] was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved, not the only one.” News of Senator Clinton’s claims has raised eyebrows across the ocean. Her reference to an important meeting at the Belfast town hall was debunked. Her only appearance at the Belfast City Hall was to see Christmas lights turned on. She also attended a 50-minute meeting which, according to the Belfast Daily Telegraph’s report at the time, “[was] a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times." Brian Feeney, an Irish author and former politician, sums it up: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t on it.” Bosnia: Senator Clinton has pointed to a March 1996 trip to Bosnia as proof that her foreign travel involved a life-risking mission into a war zone. She has described dodging sniper fire. While she did travel to Bosnia in March 1996, the visit was not a high-stakes mission to a war zone. On March 26, 1996, the New York Times reported that “Hillary Rodham Clinton charmed American troops at a U.S.O. show here, but it didn’t hurt that the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad were also on the stage.” Kosovo:Senator Clinton has said, “I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo.” It is true that, as First Lady, she traveled to Macedonia and visited a Kosovar refugee camp. It is also true that she met with government officials while she was there. First Ladies frequently meet with government officials. Her claim to have “negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo,” however, is not true. Her trip to Macedonia took place on May 14, 1999. The borders were opened the day before, on May 13, 1999. The negotiations that led to the opening of the borders were accomplished by the people who ordinarily conduct negotiations with foreign governments – U.S. diplomats. President Clinton’s top envoy to the Balkans, former Ambassador Robert Gelbard, said, “I cannot recall any involvement by Senator Clinton in this issue.” Ivo Daalder worked on the Clinton Administration’s National Security Council and wrote a definitive history of the Kosovo conflict. He recalls that “she had absolutely no role in the dirty work of negotiations.” Rwanda:Last year, former President Clinton asserted that his wife pressed him to intervene with U.S. troops to stop the Rwandan genocide. When asked about this assertion, Hillary Clinton said it was true. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that this ever happened. Even those individuals who were advocating a much more robust U.S. effort to stop the genocide did not argue for the use of U.S. troops. No one recalls hearing that Hillary Clinton had any interest in this course of action. Based on a fair and thorough review of National Security Council deliberations during those tragic months, there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. military intervention was ever discussed. Prudence Bushnell, the Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa, has recalled that there was no consideration of U.S. military intervention. At no time prior to her campaign for the presidency did Senator Clinton ever make the claim that she supported intervening militarily to stop the Rwandan genocide. It is noteworthy that she failed to mention this anecdote – urging President Clinton to intervene militarily in Rwanda – in her memoirs. President Clinton makes no mention of such a conversation with his wife in his memoirs. And Madeline Albright, who was Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, makes no mention of any such event in her memoirs. Hillary Clinton did visit Rwanda in March 1998 and, during that visit, her husband apologized for America’s failure to do more to prevent the genocide.
This site was set up to help Obama supporters who have or need campaign gear find each other. Don't throw your materials away, reuse them for future primaries! Go to the forum section and you will see many posts. And remember, all of the materials from TX, OH, RI, WY and VT, MS can be used in PA, IN, NC and others- http://www.obamacycle.com/Click on "forums" and you can post "have it" or "need it" messages there.
SPREAD THE WORD TO ALL PREVIOUS STATES!!!
(credit to Kos)
Pennsylvania's online voter registration system doesn't actuallyregister voters.That's put thousands at risk of being denied a ballot on April 22 andprobably caused headaches in county election offices across the state.Only now, with voter interest in Pennsylvania's presidential primaryspiking, the state is taking steps to avert a disaster.Here's the problem: The state's online system requires two steps, oneonline and one via old-fashioned snail mail. But many registrants areskipping the second step.The first step involves the applicant completing an online form. Thatsends counties an electronic record of each registration, but itdoesn't register the would-be voter. Doing that requires the applicantto print, sign and mail a matching copy by the March 24 deadline. If you don't receive your voter I.D. card in two weks, call your county's voters registration office.
If you don't receive your voter I.D. card in two weks, call your county's voters registration office.
This has been one of the closest presidential primary races in a generation, and right now every state, every delegate, and every vote counts. For Pennsylvania voters, this is your chance to be part of history. If you live in Pennsylvania and you haven't registered to vote yet, if you've moved recently or are unsure about your status, or if you are a registered Republican or Independent and want to vote for Barack you can Register to Vote Now:
PA Voter Registration Form:
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/voting/lib/voting/02_voter_registration_applications/onlinevoterregformblank.pdf
PA Voting Information:
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/voting/
The Pennsylvania primary is still over a month away, but the deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania is coming up quickly. In order to participate in the primary, voters must be registered as Democrats by March 24th.
As the Associated Press pointed out:
This has been one of the closest presidential primary races in a generation, and right now every state, every delegate, and every vote counts. For Pennsylvania voters, this is your chance to be part of history.
If you live in Pennsylvania and you haven't registered to vote yet, if you've moved recently or are unsure about your status, or if you are a registered Republican or Independent and want to vote for Barack you can Register to Vote Now:
